Breaking News Instant updates and real-time market news.

SoftBank (SFTBF) is still weighing its options regarding plans to sell its stake in India's Flipkart to Walmart (WMT), CEO Masayoshi Son said at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council meeting. "We are considering many options," Son said, without elaborating further. Reference Link

SoftBank Group (SFTBF) is looking at further acquisitions in the financial sector in an effort to establish a $300B asset management arm that would include its $93B Vision Fund over the next four to five years, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter. SoftBank, which agreed to acquire Fortress Investment Group (FIG) for $3.3B in February, is mulling investments in the space such as acquiring traditional investment firms or taking stakes in major private equity shops like KKR (KKR). Reference Link

10/18/17

WELS

10/18/17NO CHANGEWELS

Wells Fargo 'surprised' tower stocks didn't react to SoftBank news

After it was reported that SoftBank (SFTBF) and Australian real estate company Lendlease formed a joint venture to purchase 8,000 cell tower sites in the U.S., Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said she was "surprised" that tower company stocks did not react to this news. She had already thought if a T-Mobile (TMUS) and Sprint (S) merger deal was followed by T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray talking about network savings that the tower stocks "could take a hit," and this news may have given him "a much bigger arrow" in that quiver, she tells investors. Publicly traded tower companies include American Tower (AMT), Crown Castle (CCI) and SBA (SBAC).

KeyBanc said it does not view Softbank's (SFTBF) joint venture with Australia's Lendlease as competitive to the tower operators' primary business, noting that the venture is likely to focus on rooftop sites in urban markets, but tower businesses generate the vast majority of their revenue on sites located outside urban areas. Publicly traded tower companies include American Tower (AMT), Crown Castle (CCI) and SBA (SBAC).

10/19/17

BERN

10/19/17INITIATIONBERNOutperform

SoftBank initiated with an Outperform at Bernstein

Bernstein analyst Chris Lane started SoftBank with an Outperform rating as he believes the company has a "bright future."

WMTWalmart

$84.40

1.03 (1.24%)

05/10/18

DBAB

05/10/18NO CHANGETarget $87DBABHold

Walmart price target lowered to $87 from $99 at Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Trussell lowered his price target for Walmart to $87 ahead of the company's Q1 results on May 17. The analyst keeps a Hold rating on the shares. Investors are expressing concerns around management's ability to re-accelerate U.S. online growth, which yesterday's "dilutive" Flipkart deal exacerbated, Trussell tells investors in a research note.

05/10/18

RBCM

05/10/18NO CHANGETarget $88RBCMSector Perform

Walmart price target lowered to $88 from $103 at RBC Capital

RBC Capital analyst Scot Ciccarrelli lowered his price target on Walmart and kept his Sector Perform rating after its $16B investment for a 77% stake in Flipkart. The analyst contends that while the stake marks a "beachhead in one of the highest growth potential markets on the globe", which could also lead to a liquidity opportunity through a Flipkart IPO longer term, the operating loss from the capital deployment may be "material".

Morgan Stanley analyst Simeon Gutman noted that news reports heading up to Walmart's (WMT) deal for a majority stake in Flipkart had predicted a $12B transaction for about 60% of a business generating operating losses in the $1B range. However, the higher than expected magnitude of losses Walmart would absorb in India significantly raises the stakes on the trajectory of its U.S. business and clouds the near-term path, he said. He also questions why the company is investing outside the U.S. market, stating that it could have instead accelerated its third-party marketplace infrastructure, stepped up its partnership with Google Home (GOOG) to better compete with Amazon's (AMZN) Alexa, or intensified domestic investments in price and fulfillment. However, he does add that the deal prevents Amazon, for now, from building an "insurmountable" advantage in the important Indian market. Gutman lowered his price target on Walmart to $93 from $99 after the deal was more dilutive than anticipated and keeps an Equal Weight rating on the shares.

05/10/18

LOOP

05/10/18NO CHANGETarget $87LOOPHold

Walmart price target lowered to $87 from $92 at Loop Capital

Loop Capital analyst Andrew Wolf lowered his price target on Walmart to $87 and kept his Hold rating after the company's $16B investment in Flipkart. The analyst is positive on the deal longer term, given that India's retail market is expected to grow at 9% per year over the next 5 years and in light of the company's minimal store presence in India. In the medium term however, Wolf says the investment will be "meaningfully dilutive" to earnings, weighing on the stock.